Executive summary Accelerating climate actions and progress towards a just transition is essential to reducing climate risks and addressing sustainable development priorities, including water, food and human security (robust evidence, high agreement). Accelerating action in the context of sustainable development involves not only expediting the pace of change (speed) but also addressing the underlying drivers of vulnerability and high emissions (quality and depth of change) and enabling diverse communities, sectors, stakeholders, regions and cultures (scale and breadth of change) to participate in just, equitable and inclusive processes that improve the health and well-being of people and the planet. Looking at climate change from a justice perspective means placing the emphasis on a) the protection of vulnerable populations and low income countries from the impacts of climate change, b) mitigating the effects of the transformations, and c) ensuring an equitable decarbonized world {17.1.1}.
While transition pathways will vary across countries, they are likely to be challenging in many contexts. (robust evidence, high agreement). Climate change is the result of decades of unsustainable production and consumption patterns (for example energy production and land-use), as well as governance arrangements and political economic institutions that lock in resource-intensive development patterns (robust evidence, high agreement). Reframing development objectives and shifting development pathways towards sustainability can help transform these patterns and practices, allowing space for transitions to transform unsustainable systems (medium evidence, high agreement). {17.1.1.2}.
Sustainable development can enhance sectoral integration and social inclusion (robust evidence, high agreement). Inclusion merits attention because equity within and across countries is critical to transitions that are not simply rapid but also sustainable and just. Resource shortages, social divisions, inequitable distributions of wealth, poor infrastructure and limited access to advanced technologies can constrain the options and capacities for developing countries to achieve sustainable and just transitions (medium evidence, high agreement) {17.1.1.2}.
Concrete actions aligning sustainable development and climate mitigation and partnerships can support transitions. Strengthening different stakeholders’ “response capacities” to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate will be critical for a sustainable transition (robust evidence, high agreement). Response capacities can be increased by means of alignment across multiple stakeholders at different levels of decision-making. This alignment will also help achieve synergies and manage trade-offs between climate and sectoral policies by breaking down sectoral silos and overcoming the multiple barriers that prevent transitions from gaining traction and gathering momentum (medium evidence, high agreement) {17.1.1.1}.
Economics, psychology, governance and systems research have pointed to a range of factors that influence the speed, scale and quality of transitions (robust evidence, high agreement). Views nonetheless differ on how much market-correcting policies, shift preferences (economics) and shifts in individual and collective mindsets (psychology) and multi-level governance arrangements and inclusive political institutions (governance) contribute to system transitions (medium evidence, high agreement) {17.2}.
While economics, psychology, governance and systems thinking emphasize different enablers of transitions, they often share a view that strengthening synergies and avoiding trade-offs between climate and sustainable development priorities can overcome barriers to transitions (medium evidence, high agreement). A growing body of research and evidence can show which factors in the views from economics, psychology, governance and systems affect how interrelationships are managed
between climate, mitigation policies and sustainable development. Greater integration between studies based on different methodological approaches can show how to construct an enabling environment that increases the feasibility and sustainability of transitions {17.2, 17.3 and 17.4}.
Short- and long-term studies of transformations using macroeconomic models and integrated assessment models (IAMs) have identified synergies and trade-offs of mitigation options in the context of development pathways that align sustainable development and climate change (robust evidence, high agreement). IAMs often look at climate change mitigation and SDGs in an aggregate manner: supplementing this aggregate view with detail-rich studies involving SDGs can build support for transitions within and across countries (medium evidence, medium agreement). {17.3.2}.
The impacts of climate-change mitigation and adaptation responses, are highly context-specific and scale-dependent. There are synergies and trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation as well as synergies and trade-offs with sustainable development(robust evidence, high agreement). A strong link exists between sustainable development, vulnerability and climate risks, as limited economic, social and institutional resources often result in low adaptive capacities and high vulnerability, especially in developing countries. Resource limitations in these countries can similarly weaken the capacity for climate mitigation and adaptation. The move towards climate-resilient societies requires transformational or deep systemic change. This has important implications countries’sustainable development pathways (medium evidence, high agreement) {17.3.3.6}.
Sectoral mitigation options present synergies with the SDGs, but there are also trade-offs, which can become barriers to implementation. Such trade-offs are particularly identified in relation to the use of land for bioenergy crops, water and food access, and competition for land between forest or food production (robust evidence, high agreement). Many industrial mitigation options, like efficiency improvements, waste management and the circular economy, have synergies with the SDGs relating to access to food, water and energy (robust evidence, high agreement). The promotion of renewable energy in some industrial sectors, can imply stranded energy supply investments, which need to be taken into consideration (medium evidence, medium agreement). The Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) sector offers many low-cost mitigation options, but actions aimed at producing bioenergy, extending food access and protecting biodiversity can also create trade-offs between different land-uses (robust evidence, high agreement). Some options can help to minimize these trade-offs, for example, integrated land management, cross-sectoral policies and efficiency improvements. Lifestyle changes, including dietary changes and reduced food waste, have several synergies with climate mitigation and the SDGs (medium evidence, medium agreement). Cross-sectoral policies are important in avoiding trade-offs, to ensure that synergies between mitigation and SDGs are captured, and to ensure local people are involved in the development of new products, as well as production and consumption practices. There can be many synergies in urban areas between mitigation policies and the SDGs, but capturing these depends on the overall planning of urban structures and on local integrated policies, where, for example, affordable housing and spatial planning as a climate mitigation measure are combined with walkable urban areas, green electrification and clean renewable energy. Such integrated options can also reduce the pressures on agricultural land by reducing urban growth, thus improving food security. Access to green electricity can also support quality education (medium evidence, medium agreement). {17.3.3, 17.3.3.1, 17.3.3.3}.
Digitalization could facilitate a fast transition to sustainable development and low-emission pathways by contributing to efficiency improvements, cross-sectoral coordination and a circular economy with new IT services and decreasing resource use (low evidence, medium agreement). Several synergies with SDGs could emerge in terms of energy, food and water access, health and education, as well as trade-offs, for example, in relation to reduced employment, increasing energy
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demand and increasing demand for services, all implying increased GHG emissions. However, developing countries with limited internet access and poor infrastructure could be excluded from the benefits of digitalization (medium evidence, medium agreement). {17.3.3}.
Actions aligning sustainable development and climate mitigation and partnerships can support transitions. Strengthening different stakeholders’ “response capacities” to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate will be critical for a sustainable transition (robust evidence, high agreement). Response capacities can be increased by means of alignment across multiple stakeholders at different levels of decision-making. This alignment will also help achieve synergies and manage trade-offs between climate and sectoral policies by breaking down sectoral silos and overcoming the multiple barriers that prevent transitions from gaining traction and gathering momentum (medium evidence, high agreement) {17.1.1.1}.
The landscape of transitions to sustainable development is changing rapidly, with multiple transitions already underway. This creates the room to manage these transitions in ways that prioritise the needs for workers in vulnerable sectors (land, energy) to secure their jobs and maintain secure and healthy lifestyles, especially as the risks multiply for those exposed to heavy industrial jobs and associated outcomes (medium evidence, high agreement). {17.3.2.3}.A just transition incorporates key principles, such as respect and dignity for vulnerable groups, the creation of decent jobs, social protection, employment rights, fairness in energy access and use, and social dialogue and democratic consultation with the relevant stakeholders, while coping with the effects of asset-stranding and the transition to green and clean economies (medium evidence, medium agreement). The economic implications of the transition will be felt especially strongly by developing countries, with high dependence on hydrocarbon products for revenue streams, as they will be exposed to reduced fiscal incomes given a low demand for oil and consequent fall in oil prices (limited evidence, medium agreement). {17.3.2}.
Countries with assets that are at risk becoming stranded may lack the relevant resources, knowledge, autonomy or agency to reorientate, or to decide on the speed, scale and quality of the transition (limited evidence, medium agreement). The urgency of mitigation might overshadow some of the other priorities related to the transition, like climate change adaptation and its inherent vulnerabilities. Consequently, the transition imperative could reduce the scope and autonomy for local priority-setting and could ignore the additional risks in countries with a low capacity to adapt. A just transition will depend on local contexts, regional priorities, the starting points of different countries in the transition and the speed at which they want to travel. Both mitigation and adaptation warrant urgent and prompt action given current and continuing greenhouse gas emissions and associated negative impacts on humanity and ecosystems. (limited evidence, medium agreement). {17.3.2}.
A wide range of factors have been found to enable sustainability transitions, ranging from technological innovations to shifts in markets, and from policies and governance arrangements to shifts in belief systems and market forces (robust evidence, high agreement). Many of these factors come together in a co-evolutionary process that has unfolded globally, internationally and locally over several decades (low evidence, high agreement). Those same conditions that may serve to impede the transition (i.e., organizational structure, behaviour, technological lock-in) can also ‘flip’ to enable both it and the framing of sustainable development policies to create a stronger basis and policy support (robust evidence, high agreement). It is important to note that strong shocks to these systems, including accelerating climate change impacts, economic crises and political changes, may provide crucial openings for accelerated transitions to sustainable systems. For example, re-building more
sustainably after an extreme event, or renewed public debate about the drivers of social and economic vulnerability to multiple stressors (medium evidence, medium agreement) {17.4}.
Sustainable development and deep decarbonization will involve people and communities being connected through various means, including globally via the internet and digital technologies, in ways that prompt shifts in thinking and behaviour consistent with climate change goals (medium evidence, medium agreement). Individuals and organizations like institutional entrepreneurs can function to build transformative capacity through collective action (robust evidence, high agreement), but private-sector entrepreneurs can also play an important role in fostering and accelerating the transitions to sustainable development (robust evidence, medium agreement). Ultimately, the adoption of coordinated, multi-sectoral policies targeting new and rapid innovation can help national economies take advantage of widespread decarbonization. Green industrial policies that focus on building domestic supply chains and capacities can help states prepare for the influx of renewable, CDR-methods, or mechanisms for carbon capture and storage (medium evidence, medium agreement){17.4.2}.
Accelerating the transition to sustainability will be enabled by explicit consideration being given to the principles of justice, equality and fairness. Interventions to promote sustainability transitions that account for local context (including unequal access to resources, capacity and technology) in the development process are necessary but not sufficient in creating a just transition (low evidence, high agreement). {17.4.6}
17.1 Introduction
This chapter focuses on the opportunities and challenges for “accelerating the transition in the context of sustainable development.” The chapter suggests that accelerating transitions in the context of sustainable development requires more than concentrating on speed. Rather, it involves expediting the pace of change (speed) while also removing the underlying drivers of vulnerability and high emissions (quality and depth) and aligning the interests of different communities, regions, sectors, stakeholders and cultures (scale and breadth). One key to enabling deep and broad transitions is integrating the views of different government agencies, businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in transition processes. Another critical driver of deep and broad transitions is engaging and empowering workers, youth, women, the poor, minorities and marginalized stakeholders in just, equitable and inclusive processes. The result of such processes will be the transformation of large-scale socioeconomic systems to restore the health and well-being of the planet and the people on it.
Section 17.1 begins by reviewing how climate and sustainability issues have been discussed in the Intergovernmental Process on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as international climate change and sustainable development processes at different levels. It further introduces key themes addressed in the chapter’s remaining subsections. Section 17.2 provides an overview of how key theories understand transitions and transformation, and notes a shared concern over leveraging synergies and managing trade-offs between climate change and sustainable development across different disciplines. Section 17.3 provides an assessment of the mitigation options that can help achieve these synergies and avoid trade-offs. 17.4 pulls together the theoretical and empirical aspects by detailing the essential elements of an enabling environment that helps drive forward transitions that are quick, deep, broad and, ultimately, sustainable.
17.1.1Integrating Climate Change and Sustainable Development in International
Assessments
Climate change not only poses a profound challenge to sustainable development, it is inexorably linked to it. From the early stages of the IPCC assessment process, this challenge and the inherent link between climate change and sustainable development have been well recognized. For example, the First Assessment Report (FAR) highlighted the relevance of sustainable development for climate policy. The Second Assessment Report (SAR) went further to include equity issues in its presentation of sustainable development. The Third Assessment Report (TAR) (Banuri et al. 2001) made the link even stronger, noting that "parties have a right to and should promote sustainable development" (as stated in the text of the UNFCCC 2015 (Article 3.4)), and offering an early review of studies integrating sustainable development and climate change. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) (Sathaye et al. 2007) added an additional perspective to these interconnections, acknowledging the existence of a two-way relationship between sustainable development and climate change.
The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) (Denton et al. 2014; Fleurbaey et al. 2014) and the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C (IPCC 2018; Roy et al. 2018a) have arguably made the strongest links between climate and sustainable development to date. One of the key messages of AR5 was that the implementation of climate mitigation and adaptation actions could help promote sustainable development, and it emphasized the need for transformational changes in this regard. AR5 also concluded that the link between climate change and sustainable development is cross-cutting and complex, and that thus the impacts of climate change are threatening the efforts being made to achieve sustainable development. The IPCC special report on Global Warming of 1.5C helped systematize these links by mapping the synergies and trade-offs between selected SDG indicators and climate mitigation (IPCC 2018; Roy et al. 2018b) (see also sect. 17.3).
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Despite the clear links between sustainable development and climate change being recognised from the early stages of the IPCC, climate change has often been portrayed as an environmental problem to be addressed chiefly by environmental ministries (Brown et al. 2007; Munasinghe 2007; Swart and Raes 2007). However, this perception has evolved over time. It is now increasingly common to see governments and other actors understand the wider ramifications of a changing climate for sustainable development. In a growing number of studies, work on climate policies and just transitions towards sustainable development are framed as going hand in hand (Fuso Nerini et al. 2019; Dugarova and Gülasan 2017; Sanchez Rodriguez et al. 2018; Schramade 2017; Zhenmin and Espinosa 2019).
17.1.2 Integrating Climate Change and Sustainable Development in International
Policymaking Processes
Among the reasons for the growing realization of these interdependencies are milestones in international climate and sustainable development processes. As outlined in Chapter 14, the year 2015 was a turning point due to two agreements: 1) the Paris Agreement; and 2) the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Farzaneh et al. 2021).
Following a long history of references to sustainable development in the UNFCCC and related agreements, the Paris Agreement helped to strengthen the links between climate and sustainable development by emphasizing that sustainability is related to its objectives (Sindico 2016; UNFCCC 2016). One of the ways that it helped tighten this link is by institutionalizing bottom-up pledges and the review architecture. Toward this end, the Paris Agreement instituted nationally determined contributions (NDCs) as vehicles through which countries make pledges and demonstrate their commitment to climate action. Although there was no clear guidance on what should be included in the NDCs, some of the requirements were elaborated in the Paris Rule Book (see above, Chapter 14). Some of the submitted NDCs included only mitigation efforts, but others set out mitigation and adaptation goals aligning NDC commitments to national planning processes, while yet others mentioned links with the SDGs.
Another way that the Paris Agreement and the NDCs could strengthen their links to sustainable development is to update country-specific climate pledges. Countries are free to choose their targets and the means and instruments with which to implement them. A core feature of the NDCs was that countries submit NDCs every five years, giving them an opportunity to assess themselves relative to other countries, raise their ambitions and learn from their peers. Moreover, it was emphasized that countries should not “backslide” in subsequent NDCs, thus ensuring that countries should always be forward-looking in respect of increasing their ambitions to deliver the Paris Goals. Höhne et al. (2017) found that, in developing countries especially, the NDC preparation process has improved national climate policy-making.
Despite some favourable reviews, several assessments of specific countries’ NDCs (Andries et al. 2017; Rogelj et al. 2016; Vandyck et al. 2016) have assessed that those submitted for 2020-2030 are insufficient for delivering on the Paris goals. Updated and/or new NDCs were therefore submitted by end of 2020. However, an assessment of those NDCs revealed that the level of ambition was significantly lower than the goals of the Paris Agreement (UNFCCO 2020; see also this Chapter). One of the urgent calls in Paris was to assess the impacts and efforts that need to be undertaken to keep global warming well below 2°C in relation to pre-industrial levels and evaluate related global greenhouse-gas emission pathways (UNFCCC 2015). Although the initial NDCs fell short of these goals, the idea was that NDCs would be living documents that could ratchet up climate action and ambition.
Countries have also started to take actions on the SDGs themselves (Antwi-Agyei et al. 2018a; UNDESA 2016, 2017, 2018). The SDGs were perceived as a novel approach to development and as establishing a universal agenda for the transformation of development patterns and socioeconomic systems. At their core, the SDGs hold that building an integrated framework for action necessitates
addressing the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development in an integrated manner (Biermann et al. 2017; Kanie and Biermann 2017). The SDGs take multiple elements of development into account in aiming to offer coherent, well-integrated, overarching approaches to a range of sustainability challenges, including climate change.
One way a link is made between climate and the SDGs is through Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs). Paralleling the bottom-up orientation of the Paris Agreement and the NDCs, every year approximately forty countries voluntarily share their VNRs with the international community at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). Even more flexible than the NDCs, the VNRs can include content such as a summary of key policies and measures that are intended to achieve the SDGs, a list of the means of implementation that support the SDGs, and related challenges and needs. The VNRs also often cover SDG 13 (on climate change) as well as many other issues connected with climate change. Even with these links, implementation of the SDGs should be mentioned as part of national development processes reflecting different countries’ different priorities, visions and plans (Hanson and Puplampu 2018; Marcotullio et al. 2018; OECD 2016; Puplampu et al. 2017; Srikanth 2018).
Yet another way that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development underlines the importance of capturing synergies is its calls for policy coherence (goals 17 and 14). Policy coherence and integration between sectors are two of the most critical factors in breaking down the silo mode of working of different sectors. Working across climate and other sustainability agendas is essential to coherence.
A final way that the sustainability and climate agendas have been linked is through vertical integration. Following a similar trend that appeared with Agenda 21, for which many cities adopted local plans, a growing number of cities have introduced Voluntary Local Reviews. The VLRs resemble the VNRs, but place the emphasis on local actions and needs regarding the SDGs (and some links to climate change) (Ortíz-Moya et al. 2021). The 2019 SDG Report shows that 150 countries have developed national urban plans, almost half of them also being in the implementation phase (United Nations General Assembly 2019).
17.1.3 Integrating Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Other Policymaking
Processes
Other non-UN-led initiatives involving international organizations or clusters of countries have also helped to raise the issue of sustainable development as a framework for mitigation. The OECD, for instance, assesses different types of investments and economic activities with reference to their significance for environmental sustainability (OECD 2020), while G20 countries have drawn up action agendas with sustainable development at the (UToronto 2016). Meanwhile, the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, a political movement convened by major country-group representatives launched in 2010 by the German government, has also called for sustainability to be an intrinsic part of the transition (UNFCCO 2020; BMU 2018).
Due in part to the shifting orientation of these international processes, there is growing evidence of action on climate change and sustainable development at other levels of decision-making. National policies often aim to implement climate change policies in the context of sustainable development (Chimhowu et al. 2019; Chirambo 2018; ECLAC 2017; Fuseini and Kemp 2015; Galli et al. 2018; Haywood et al. 2019; Ministry of Environment of Jordan 2016; McKenzie and Abdulkadri 2018; UNDESA 2016, 2017, 2018; UN Women 2017). Some countries are adjusting their existing policies to build on themes familiar to sustainable development (Lucas et al. 2016), including renewable energy and energy efficiency (Fastenrath and Braun 2018; Kousksou et al. 2015), urban planning (Gorissen et al. 2018; Loorbach et al. 2016; Mendizabal et al. 2018), health systems (Pencheon 2018; Roschnik et al. 2017) and agricultural systems (Lipper and Zilberman 2018; Shaw and Roberts 2017). Cross-cutting and integrated approaches, such as the circular economy, have also been gaining traction in some European countries (EESC 2015) and G20 countries (Noura et al. 2020). Many of these efforts have also extended up to the regional and down to the local level (Gorissen et al. 2018; Hess 2014; Shaw and Roberts 2017).
Chapter 17: Accelerating the transition in the context of sustainable development Coordinating Lead Authors: Fatima Denton (the Gambia), Kirsten Halsnæs (Denmark)
Lead Authors: Keigo Akimoto (Japan), Sarah Burch (Canada), Cristobal Diaz Morejon (Cuba), Fernando Farias (Chile), Joni Jupesta (Indonesia), Ali Shareef (Maldives), Petra Schweizer-Ries (Germany), Fei Teng (China), Eric Zusman (the United States of America)
Contributing Authors: Antonethe Castaneda (Guatemala), Morten Andreas Dahl Larsen (Denmark), Shreya Some (India)
Review Editors: Diriba Korecha Dadi (Ethiopia), Hermann Held (Germany)
Chapter Scientist: Antonethe Castaneda (Guatemala)
Date of Draft: 28/11/2021
Table of Contents Chapter 17: Accelerating the transition in the context of sustainable development .................. 1Executive summary ................................................................................................................ 3
17.1
Introduction ................................................................................................................. 7
17.1.1Assessments ........................................................................................................................ 7
Integrating Climate Change and Sustainable Development in International
17.1.2 Integrating Climate Change and Sustainable Development in International Policymaking Processes ..................................................................................................... 8
17.1.3 Integrating Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Other Policymaking Processes ............................................................................................................................. 9
17.2Accelerating Transitions in the Context of Sustainable Development: Definitions and Theories ......................................................................................................................... 10
17.2.1 Economics ............................................................................................................. 10
17.2.2 Institutions, Governance, and Political Economy ................................................. 12
17.2.3
Psychology, Individual Beliefs and Social Change .......................................... 14
17.2.5 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 16
17.3. Assessment of the results of studies where decarbonisation transitions are framed within the context of sustainable development .................................................................... 16
17.3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 16
17.3.2 Short-term and long-term transitions ..................................................................... 17
17.3.3 Cross-sectoral transitions ....................................................................................... 32
17.4Key barriers and enablers of the transition: synthesizing results .............................. 54
17.4.1Behavioural and lifestyle changes ..................................................................... 55
17.4.2Technological and social innovation ................................................................. 57
17.4.3Financial systems and economic instruments .................................................... 58
17.4.4
Institutional capacities and multi-level governance ........................................... 59
17.4.5Equity in a just transition ................................................................................... 61
17.4.6Holistic planning and the nexus approach ......................................................... 62
17.5Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 63
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ................................................................................... 66
References ............................................................................................................................ 68
WG III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report List of corrigenda to be implemented The corrigenda listed below will be implemented in the Chapter during copy-editing.
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Coal has hitherto been the dominant energy source in China and has accounted for more than 70% of its total energy consumption for the past twenty years, falling to 64% in 2015 (The National BIM Report 2018). In the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020), for the first time China included the target of a national coal consumption cap of 4.1 billion tons for 2020, as well as a goal of reducing the primary energy share of coal to 58% by 2020 from the level of 64% in 2015 (The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China 2016).
Delete paragraph Replace: For example, the case of coal-fired power in China (section 17.3) shows that a transition to a lower carbon system is unlikely to happen even if models find it technically feasible and cost-effective.
With "A transition to a lower carbon system is unlikely to happen even if models find it technically feasible and cost-effective."